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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24550273">The Mermaid of Fin Tip Island</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harpers_Horror_Shop/pseuds/Harpers_Horror_Shop'>Harpers_Horror_Shop</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Horror, Monster horror, Short Story</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:20:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,147</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24550273</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harpers_Horror_Shop/pseuds/Harpers_Horror_Shop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A dead woman was found on the beach one morning.</p>
<p>They should have left her there.</p>
<p>//Content warning for graphic descriptions of autopsy, death, and horror//</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Mermaid of Fin Tip Island</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>First time posting original work to this site! Know it's more fandom based, but can't really find any better sites for posting haha... anyways, hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was Daniel Simmons who had first come across the body. He made a habit of jogging in the early morning hours after he had recovered from a triple bypass at the age of 43. The sun had only just begun to peak over the horizon, painting long streaks of gold and purple over the sands of the beach. </p>
<p>Daniel ran at the water’s edge, the low tide creating a firm platform of sand to carry his weight. Light was still scarce but he made out the shape ahead of him, crumpled on the ground, and immediately recognized it as human. He sped up, hoping to resuscitate what he believed, what he hoped, was a foolish surfer or swimmer who had attempted to beat the crowds that gathered by midday. From five feet away, he realized they were dead.</p>
<p>Less than thirty minutes later, the calm golden light of the sun was covered with the harsh rotation of blue and red lights. Daniel stayed with the body until the police arrived. When questioned by police, he said nothing, only stared out into the still calm waters of low tide. The shock effectively silenced him through the morning. </p>
<p>There was little they could conclude from the external view of the body. It was a young woman, Sheriff Bates guessed she was no older than 25, based off of his own past experience. Her long blond hair would have shone beautifully in the glow of the sun had it not been clumped and tangled, chunks of sand matting it to the beach. </p>
<p>There were only two notable things about her. One was the fact that she was completely naked, though it could be easily speculated, given the mask of the night, that she had been skinny diving. The second, which was much harder to explain, were the marks covering the entirety of her legs, so faded they were almost mistaken as varicose veins until closer inspection. The examiners realized they were completely uniform, creating small circular shapes that layered on top of one another, the largest of which were one inch in diameter while the smallest could barely fit the circumference of a dime. </p>
<p>The body of the deceased found its way to Joanne Whitaker’s examination table by midday. With no form of identification available, they would have to rely on DNA tests. Whitaker was the oldest employee of Fin Tip Island’s Medical Examination Department, with nearly four decades of experience behind her, half of which she gained in a much larger, much more busy city from the mainland. She had seen bodies in any grotesque state one could possibly imagine. The years of death and decay had managed not to make her colder but harder, chiseled down by the grief of the mothers and fathers and children of the deceased, until she was smooth and flawless, no cracks allowing for imperfection to enter, both in her craft and her mind.</p>
<p>Whitaker began with fingerprints. She had concluded that Ms. Doe couldn’t have been dead for more than six hours with only the beginnings of rigor mortis beginning to set in the limbs. She also began the process of requesting dental records for the girl. The town of Fin Tip was a small one, less than 1,000 people inhabited the island, and with the distance from the mainland and the rough hurricane season that was quickly approaching, she expected it would be a long time before it outgrew that number. Part of her expected that the girl’s family would appear looking for her before she even got the results back. </p>
<p>There had only been two unidentified bodies in the history of Fin Tip. They had been found at the same time, discovered by a homeless man in an abandoned hotel room, both sitting hunched against the wall, one’s head drooping and laying on the other’s shoulder in what could almost be mistaken as a romantic scene. Until one saw the rubber tubing tied just above the bends of their elbows, the scabs visible on their exposed arms and the glints of their rotting yellow teeth. The cause of death was overdose, and the case was quickly classified as two tragic burn outs from out of state. Jane Doe, however, was not like that. She was a pretty  20-something white woman. The type of girl that had someone missing her every minute of every day. She was the type that would be in news headlines for weeks until her family or her fiance was found, and the images of their grief-stricken faces could be projected for the world to see. They would be followed through their process of mourning until she was finally laid to rest, surrounded by the people that had loved her the most in life, and those who had fallen in love with the projection of the beautifully young and innocent face that had practically been seared into their eyes in obituaries and news specials and social media.</p>
<p>Until then, she was still just Jane Doe. And Whitaker had a job to do.</p>
<p>Upon further investigation, she had found a few more anomalies that separated this body from the average cadaver. On either side of her rib cage were four scars, each following the natural curve of her ribs, so uniform with one another that they had to represent some sort of symbology, whether spiritual or personal. The only bit of information Whitaker could ascertain from these scars was that they had been made long before Ms. Doe passed away and more than likely, had nothing to do with her death. </p>
<p>Time moved quickly as Whitaker continued her duty. She only noticed with passing interest as the slits of sky began to darken through the few windows towards the ceiling with thick, robust clouds. The fluorescent bulbs above her head made the change nearly unseen in the pale white of the medical room. Rather than continue to let the gradual gathering of raindrops on the windows distract her further, she worked diligently on the cadaver, draining blood, taking necessary samples; and eventually cutting open the chest of the woman, clean and simple, and pulling her open. She laid the two folds of thick skin over Ms. Doe’s arms before she started to pull back the upward flap of her chest. </p>
<p>Whitaker caught a glimpse of the deceased’s face, eyelids slit open to reveal the pupils beneath. She recalled her eyes being shut when she had first been delivered. This didn’t bother her, Whitaker had been working long enough to know the human body tends to do some strange things once it’s passed away, small movements that are so simple but only take on dread when they are performed by the shells of what we leave behind. What did unsettle her were the eyes themselves. The way they had dilated, pools of black that reflected nothing, consuming nearly the entire pupil with only the faintest ring of a murky green that encircled the iris. A film of milky white covered the few centimeters that were visible of the eyes as they stared up ithrough the ceiling, far beyond into the rain clouds above and even further. Whitaker thought to herself how closely they resembled the eyes of a dead fish. She looked away.</p>
<p>The rumble of thunder gently shook the walls. Whitaker chose to dampen the sound with her electric saw. She made quick work of the sternum, cutting away the long fingers of pearly white that wrapped around her lungs, stretched open as Whitaker dove deeper. She stopped and glanced at the sliver of her heart that was visible between the cover of her lungs. There was something wrong with it. It seemed smaller than what a healthy woman at her age should have. Not dramatically so, perhaps two ounces less than the average, but enough to give her pause. Whitaker laid the saw down, leaning closer towards the cavity. Her hands moved skillfully to shift each lung to the side, exposing the smaller organ. It wasn’t just that the heart was smaller, the shape was subtly different. The arteries weren’t quite right, not nearly enough present. Her hands were moving before she understood what exactly she was looking for, the scalpel cutting through the thick tissue of the organ. Her thumbs slipped into the cut, pulling the heart into halves. Three chambers. This woman’s heart only had three chambers in it. It was true that there had been rare cases of humans born with such a condition, but many never managed to live beyond a few months of birth, and those who did were often plagued by other medical issues or irregularities. They certainly wouldn’t be healthy enough to surf or swim in the wild waters of the ocean.</p>
<p>Whitaker felt something then, something that she hadn’t felt in years, possibly decades, as she examined the still heart of Ms. Doe, covered in a soft sheen of moisture even after the blood had been drained from her. She felt as though she shouldn’t be looking at her. Felt as though she were disrupting something sacred, something deeply personal. Not meant for her eyes. </p>
<p>In the midst of her thoughts, she heard the phone ring. Whitaker hesitated to turn from the body, but after another ring, she quickly pulled the gloves from her hands and threw them in the waste bin, striding over to pick up the phone on the other side of the room. Only now did she notice how severely the wind and rain had picked up outside, the light of day blotted completely by inky stretches of clouds.</p>
<p>“There’s someone who wants to see you,” Jennifer from the front desk said.</p>
<p>“I’m in the middle of something.”</p>
<p>“Right, I know, but it’s uh,” There was a pause and the sound of adjustment before Jennifer spoke again, “It’s Daniel Simmons. The guy who found that girl this morning.” She was speaking more softly now, what Whitaker assumed was her attempt to keep Daniel from hearing in. “He wants to know if you’ve... found anything?”</p>
<p>“Well, tell him that unless he’s next of kin, he has no legal rights to that information. He’ll just have to wait until a public statement’s been made,” Whitaker responded, her earlier surreal experience subsiding slightly into irritation.</p>
<p>“I mean, I tried that but he’s really persistent. He’s already been here for- wait a minute, sir!” The last few words were more distant as Jennifer had turned her head away from the phone. Even from back in the examination room, over the pouring rain and thunder, she could hear his steps booming down the hall towards her. Towards both of them. </p>
<p>Whitaker hung up the phone, moving quickly towards the door of the room in hopes of beating the man. She swung the door open, turning to her right towards the entrance of the hall, only to see Daniel barreling towards her so quickly that she feared he would trample right over her to get into the room. Upon seeing her, however, he planted his outstretched foot firmly into the ground, hand reaching to the wall to balance himself as the forward momentum nearly carried his body over itself and onto the floor. Water dripped from his jacket and hair. </p>
<p>“Mr. Simmons, you know that you can’t be back here. If you don’t leave this instant I will call-”</p>
<p>“You’ve gotta leave the body alone,” He interrupted, breath heavy as he spoke. Whitaker could see something wild in Daniel’s eyes, an instinctual sort of dread that kept his whole body tense and ready to flee. “Ma’am I don’t think she… there’s something that-”</p>
<p>And with another clash of thunder, the halls were thrown into darkness. Daniel screamed in terror, scaring Whitaker more than the power cutting off had by far. </p>
<p>“Mr. Simmons, please! It’s just a power outage. The backup generator will be kicking in any moment now.” She could only make the vaguest outline of Daniel’s shape out in the darkness, more coming into focus as her eyes adjusted. He was shaking.</p>
<p>Behind them, the door to the front desk opened, a light shining down towards them.</p>
<p>“Power’s out… guess you already realized that though,” Jennifer said, walking towards the two before pausing. “ Doesn’t the back up usually kick on by now?” She asked, the phone in her hand illuminating the three of them. Whitaker gave a glare to Jennifer, eyes quickly darting up towards Daniel before landing back on her. She responded first with confusion before coming to an understanding.</p>
<p>“Yes, well, Mr. Simmons, you should probably go ahead and head back home.” Jennifer’s head motioned towards the door to the office ahead. “We can call your wife to come and get you since the rain’s so bad now.”</p>
<p>“No I… we gotta give it back,” He replied, a barely noticeable tremor in his voice. “Gotta give her back.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m sorry?” Whitaker looked at Daniel questionably. “Give back the woman?” A gradual creep of fear crawled up her spine.</p>
<p>“She’s not right,” He said. Whitaker watched him closely, his face contorting as he attempted to come up with the right words. “I don’t think she belongs here. There’s something wrong about her. You saw all that shit on her legs.” He looked down at Whitaker. Something in her expression must have assured him. “You found something, didn’t you?” Whitaker didn’t respond, only stared back at Daniel. </p>
<p>Then a noise came from the examination room. </p>
<p>The hallway was silent, not a breath to be heard between the three of them. They stayed still, all unsure, unbelieving in what had echoed through the door. But within only a few seconds, another noise wormed through the gap from under the door, unmistakably organic. It wasn’t a moan, nor was it a breath exactly, more like a wet rattling that occasionally faded in and out. Whitaker was the first to turn and face the examination room, lips pressed together, unable to create a response to the situation. The human body does strange things once it’s passed away. She reached for the handle and opened the door.</p>
<p>The examination room was nearly as dark as the hallway, the only glints of light coming from the windows to the outside with the storm causing the visible parts of the lab to be washed in an unsaturated grey. The corpse was still on the table, that much she could see immediately. She took a step into the room, no longer bothering to guard Daniel from entering, knowing he would not dare do so by his own free will. Another step forward. Jennifer pointed the light into the examination room, the most she was willing to assist Whitaker in her current journey. In place of the soft greys, the light of the phone covered the metallic surfaces in harsh sections of white, Whitaker’s shadow stretching in a cut of black across the floor and through the corpse in front of her, perfectly halving the figure. The sound came again. In the hot glow of the phone’s light, she could see Ms. Doe shift, slowly, in sync with the noise. The gargled noise was steady, rising with the motion of her chest before settling back to the table. </p>
<p>“I think we need to call Sheriff Bates,” Whitaker said, refusing to look away from the body. She wasn’t sure that he could even help in the situation, but she didn’t know who else to call. She just needed someone else here. Preferably someone with a gun.</p>
<p>“Is it? Is she…” Daniel asked, teetering at the threshold of the room. </p>
<p>“It’s most likely gas escaping the body.” She knew that wasn’t true. What she didn’t know was whether the lie was to comfort Daniel or herself. There was no explaining away what happened next.</p>
<p>A shrill cry pierced the silence, so loud all three witnesses were forced to cover their ears, Jennifer dropping her phone in the process and causing the beam of light to point towards the ceiling. The screech was ungodly, deafening, nauseating, and funneled out of the corpse in front of them. The limbs shook, clattering against the metal slab beneath, her entire body seizing as the crying never faltered. Whitaker could barely hear Daniel cursing under his breath, and only realized that he had begun to run for the office doors when his voice grew even more distant. She heard the slam of a door in what she expected was Daniel barging through the main office and out into the soaked, sane outdoors, only for a moment later to hear fast footsteps returning to them, his stream of cursing more frantic than before.</p>
<p>“Something, something coming outside, coming.” He was hysterical, face now newly soaked with sweat and tears. </p>
<p>And just like that, the crying stopped, the silence only enjoyed for mere seconds before it was replaced by a wet slapping coming from the main office. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. The sound from the office was rhythmic, a slap against the ground followed by a steady slimy sliding over the floors. It was coming towards the hall.</p>
<p>Whitaker’s eyes darted around her surroundings, brain processing the situation a mile a minute. Behind Jennifer, on the other side of the hall, was the records room. She sprung forward, pushed past Daniel, past Jennifer, grabbed the handle and twisted. It was unlocked. </p>
<p>She swung the door open, looking back at the other two for only a second before passing through the threshold. Understanding that this would be their only chance at shelter, both wordlessly followed her in, Daniel nearly pushing the door out of her hands to close it once he had entered. The door shut, the lock was turned, and the three stood in silence. The thumping was muted through the door, but still audible enough to make out as it crashed through the doors of the hallway. As it approached, Whitaker tried to put a possible source to the noise. What sort of state would a person have to be in to make such an ungodly, sopping noise?</p>
<p>“There was someone else.” Whitaker’s head snapped behind her to Daniel. He was crying openly now, gasps of air punctuating his barely audible whispers. “At the beach when I saw… her… it. Fuck…” He wiped at his nose with the sleeve of his jacket.</p>
<p>“It was… in the water.”</p>
<p>Behind them, Jennifer mumbled the Lord’s Prayer into clasped hands.</p>
<p>“Another body?” Whitaker replied.</p>
<p>“No it… it was alive. When I was checking on the girl on the beach I looked out and I saw,” he let out another gasp between sobs, “something was watching me. It didn’t want them to take her.”</p>
<p>The noise was only feet away from them now. Afraid Daniel would be compelled to speak more, Whitaker reached over, hand clasping over his mouth. He made no effort to pull away, instead shutting his eyes tightly, willing himself to mute his cries. All three were silent once again, huddled and crouched to the floor. It was in front of them now, only separated by a door.</p>
<p>Silence fell over the building. Whitaker refused to move, not even as she felt the tears and snot of Daniel run down her knuckles. Then the air was filled again with inhuman screaming, lower in tone and akin to the harsh, unfaltering blair of a ship’s horn. It continued for what felt like minutes, even hours,to the point that Whitaker believed she would lose her sanity, had lost her sanity, cracks beginning to spider across the once smooth and polished surface that was her mind.</p>
<p>When it finally stopped, Whitaker felt as though she had forgotten any noises that existed outside of that hellish cry. The slapping and dragging began once again, now in the examination room. She listened, heard the clatter of metal as tools fell to the ground, heard pulling and adjustment and then heard the trek of the beast begin again, out of the examination room, down the hall, into the main office, and out into the storm.</p>
<p>Still, they refused to move, unwilling to risk the possibility of a trap that had been laid for them just outside the safety of their nest. What felt like hours passed. Whitaker’s arm was numb from exhaustion, but still held firmly against Daniel’s mouth.</p>
<p>“Do you have your phone?” She asked. He nodded. Whitaker dropped her arm, letting it hang limp at her side. “Call the sheriff.”</p>
<p>Forty eight minutes passed before there was another sound. Even though the footsteps were distinctly human, even more distinctly the sheriff’s cowboy boots, Whitaker did not open the door, instead waiting for the sound of his voice to call for her. Steadily, she stood up, having to brace against the door to keep from falling as blood rushed back into her legs. She opened the door, and blinked back the light that assaulted her eyes. At some point the power had returned. </p>
<p>“Mrs. Whitaker.” Her head snapped towards the voice, seeing Sheriff Bates standing in the hall, expression a mixture of confusion and pity. “So you say it was a break in?”</p>
<p>Behind her, Daniel and Jennifer also stood. She took a step into the hallway, both to allow them room to exit, and to prove it was now safe. “Yes. I believe so.”</p>
<p>“Believe so?” The sheriff’s eyed the two that wandered out behind her momentarily before landing back on her. “Did you see the intruder?”</p>
<p>“No. Not entirely.” Whitaker turned back to Daniel. “Mr. Simmons had come in with some… questions about this morning’s Jane Doe. As I was explaining this to him,” she stopped, looking back to Bates, “the power went out. And a few minutes later, someone came in. Someone who I believe wanted to do us harm.” </p>
<p>“Did the intruder have a weapon?” Bates questioned.</p>
<p>What could she say that wouldn’t sound completely insane? </p>
<p>“I don’t know,” She answered after a short moment, “but they were extremely disruptive and seemed aggressive.”</p>
<p>Bates studied her face, eventually giving a shrug of the shoulders. “Sounds like a loon. Y’all were pretty lucky I’d say. I’ll be taking statements from all of you to run down to the station, see if we can get any details on this, uh, suspect of yours.” He looked up and down the halls. “Boy sure did leave a mess.”</p>
<p>Whitaker hadn’t bothered to look beyond the sheriff. Now she looked down and saw what he was referring to. Her eyes followed pools of dark green liquid covering the floors that trailed from beyond the doors to the main office, down to their position in front of the records room, before turning abruptly and leading to the examination room. She followed the trail, already knowing what would lie at the end. The murky liquid only went as far as the ,now empty, examination table.</p>
<p>“She didn’t belong here,” Daniel said in a hushed tone, only for Whitaker to hear. He had been staring into the room long before her, but only now spoke. “It took her back to where she belonged. I should have left her. I should have left her.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Daniel Simmons was found dead two weeks later. Whitaker refused to do the autopsy. It was classified as major cardiac arrest. He had been alone in his house while his wife visited relatives that lived off the island. With his previous medical history of heart problems, there was no reason to believe something like this couldn’t happen. As far as the dark puddles of green water that trailed in through his back door, through the kitchen and soaked through the carpet leading to his bathroom, stopping just short of his body, they could only guess he had gone outside to take care of something in his backyard. It had been raining awfully hard that night, after all.</p>
<p>Joanne Whitaker continued her work at the Medical Examination Office, unlike Jennifer who hadn’t even bothered to put in a two weeks notice before packing her belongings into a box and leaving the building the day after the incident. She moved away, apparently. Somewhere in the midwest. Whitaker stayed, though, still felt drawn to her craft, too much history under her belt to simply quit after one scare. She worked just as diligently and precisely as she ever had before the break in.</p>
<p>Except when the storms came. On those days, she would call off, cite a failing back or cold for her reasoning. She would lock every knob, chain, deadbolt, and key she had added to the doors of her house. She would go to her basement with a crank light and a shotgun that belonged to her late husband, and she would sit in silence, waiting for the storm to pass and for the creatures that dwelled in the waters surrounding Fin Tip Island to return to their habitations come high tide.</p>
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